If you find yourself eating when you’re not hungry, but rather when you feel certain emotions like stress, anxiety or sadness, the chances are you’re eating emotionally. Emotional eating might seem something to ‘get rid of’ or to manage, but really it is just a way you manage your emotions. Using food for comfort is nothing bad or scary, the question really is: does this- emotional eating- serve you? Is this a good coping mechanism? If your answer is no, keep reading to find out how to develop better coping mechanisms.
Emotional eating might not be best coping mechanism because it often makes us feel numb and allows us to avoid ‘feeling the feelings’. If you can’t tune in with yourself and listen to what your emotions are trying to tell you, how can you possibly do something about it?
So, if you’re ready to develop other coping mechanisms, keep in mind that emotional eating often happens without us realizing it so the very first step is to…
- Identify your patterns
Best tool to do that, is to keep a journal. Track information like: what you eat, when you eat, were you physically hungry, what emotion were you feeling. You might feel like you know the answers already, but there patterns are often subconscious and keeping a journal like that for a week or two will give you much better insights into your emotional eating patterns.
- Identify emotions you’re avoiding feeling
Once you’re finished with your journal, take a moment to have a look at the Emotions column, What emotions are you trying to escape? Is it sadness, stress, anxiety or maybe anger? Ask yourself- here you can of course journal as well- why are you avoiding these feelings? What are they trying to tell you?
- Feel the feelings
Let’s say it’s sadness you want to suppress. Now, let’s face it together instead of avoiding it. Close your eyes and try to locate the emotion in your body. Is it in your belly? Throat? Hear? Place your hand there and say: I feel you sadness (or any other emotion). You belong here. Stay in this moment. Feel that emotion. When we validate and see our emotions, the intensity often decreases.
- Be patient
Changing habits is much more difficult that we think. You might keep feeling the urge to eat emotionally and that ok. It’s not about not feeling it, but rather raising awareness of our body and emotions and working on changing reactions.
- Write a list of other things you can do instead of eating
What other things can you do that will actually serve you to manage your emotions? Something that you will enjoy doing. Make a list and look at it next time you experience urge to emotionally eat. Some ideas are: going for a walk, listening to music, exercising, calling a friend, drawing, etc.
Changing your habits takes time and practice. Be kind and non-judgmental towards yourself. It might not work every time, but if you keep going, you will start seeing new habits forming and the urge to eat will be getting weaker.